Portugal protects over two million km2 of ocean from trawling

Most deep-sea fishing has now been prohibited by the Portuguese government in an area spanning more than two million km2, in a move to help promote sustainable fisheries and the conservation of deep-sea ecosystems. The exceptions are fishing with lines and hooks, and pole and line, and catching bait with a purse seine. Bottom longline fishing is confined to a fixed number of days a year and restricted to a minimal hook size and maximum number of hooks per line.

“Portugal has made a significant step to ensure that its fleet is exploiting deep-sea ecosystems sustainably," says Xavier Pastor, executive director of Oceana in Europe. "We hope that this measure, which will affect an area four times the size of the Iberian Peninsula, inspires other countries with fishing interests in the area to adopt similar bans.

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EU to ban destructive deep sea fishing?

European Commission calls for ban of destructive deep-sea fishing in the Northeast Atlantic

July 2012. Greenpeace has welcomed a plan presented by the European Commission to ban some of the most environmentally damaging fishing practices, under a review of EU rules governing deep-sea fishing in the Northeast and Central Atlantic. The Commission wants to phase out licences for deep-sea trawling and gillnet fishing in the area over the next two years, acting on a long-standing pledge request by the United Nations to end destructive fishing in some of the world's most sensitive and rich ecosystems.

Most destructive, fuel-intensive and subsidy-dependent fishing activities
Greenpeace EU fisheries policy director Saskia Richartz said: "Deep-sea bottom trawling and gillnet fishing rank among the most destructive, fuel-intensive and subsidy-dependent fishing activities. A relatively small number of boats have devastated some of the world's most fragile and rich ecosystems, with European taxpayers footing the bill."

Extensive damage
Gillnet fishing commonly involves using static or drifting nets with a mesh size (or holes) narrow enough to trap fish. Deep-sea trawling involves the destructive dragging of large, heavy nets across the seafloor. Scientists have identified extensive damage from trawling at 200-1400 metres in depth along the Atlantic shelf off the coasts of Ireland, Scotland and Norway. Most deep-sea stocks exploited by EU fleets in the Northeast Atlantic are seriously depleted, according to EU assessments. Bottom trawling also has one of the highest rates of bycatch of non-target species in the European fleet, with up to half of what is caught being discarded.

Continued:  http://www.wildlifeextra.com/go/news/deep-sea-fishing.html

Humans skilled anglers 42,000 years ago

Fish hooks and fishbones dating back 42,000 years found in a cave in East Timor suggest that humans were capable of skilled, deep-sea fishing 30,000 years earlier than previously thought, researchers in Australia and Japan said on Friday.

The artefacts — nearly 39,000 fishbones and three fish hooks — were found in a limestone cave in Jerimalai in East Timor, 50 metres (165 feet) above sea level, said Sue O’Connor from the Australian National University’s department of archaeology and natural history.

“There was never any hint of (what) maritime technology people might have had in terms of fishing gear 40,000 years ago,” O’Connor, the study’s lead author, told Reuters by telephone from Canberra.

“(This study showed) you got ability to make hooks, you are using lines on those hooks. If you can make fibre lines, you can make nets, you are probably using those fibres on your boats.”

“It gives us a lot of information on how people subsisted on these very small islands on their way to Australia,” she said.

Modern humans were capable of long-distance sea travel 50,000 years ago as they colonised Australia, but evidence of advanced maritime fishing has been rare.

Researchers until now have only been able to find evidence of open-ocean fishing up to 12,000 years ago.

HOOKS MADE FROM SHELL

O’Connor and her colleagues, who published their findings in the journal Science, found the bones and hooks in a 1 sq metre “test pit” in the cave, 300 metres (985 feet) from the coast.

“All the bones we got inside were just the result of human meals, 40,000 years ago,” said O’Connor.

“They were living in that shelter and we are fortunate that all the materials are preserved so well in that limestone cave, which preserves bone and shell really well,” she said.

The fish hooks were apparently made from the shells of the Trochus, a large sea snail.

“They are very strong shell … we think they just put bait on and dropped the hook in the water from a boat (at the) edge of a reef,” O’Connor said.

The fish bones were traced to 23 species of fish, including tuna, unicornfish, parrotfish, trevallies, triggerfish, snappers, emperors and groupers.

“Parrotfish and unicorn were probably caught on baited hooks … but tuna are deepwater, fast-moving fish. Tuna and trevallies were probably caught by lure fishing,” O’Connor said.

http://www.discoveryon.info/2012/01/humans-skilled-anglers-42000-years-ago.html